


The Baker who went away from the World

by PrettyArbitrary



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 11:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13809981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyArbitrary/pseuds/PrettyArbitrary
Summary: Jack went away from the village when he was young, and came back when he was gray.  He'd fought bravely in wars for his country, been honored by the king himself as a hero. But in the end, war is no one's home, so he came back to his village. And soldiering isn't a life, so he became a baker, like his father had been before him.And then he made a friend.





	The Baker who went away from the World

Jack went away from the village when he was young, and came back when he was gray. He'd fought bravely in wars for his country, been honored by the king himself as a hero. But in the end, war is no one's home, so he came back to his village. And soldiering isn't a life, so he became a baker, like his father had been before him.

Jack doesn't have a lot, but he remembers what it was like to go without food, so whatever he has left over at the end of the day, he gives to the village children or leaves out for the animals. The village has a lot of foxes. They make off with a lot of food. Other villagers will chase off the foxes or try to put the food somewhere they can't get it, but Jack lets them take it. He figures foxes need to eat too.

One day a young man moves into town. It's a nine day wonder. He's beautiful and elegant, and new! Jack sees him around town, but he's had his fill of strangers in his life and doesn't find them so impressive anymore, so he doesn't go out of his way to introduce himself to the new person. Other villagers positively swarm the young man, whose name is Genji. He seems to bask in it. The townspeople all want stories and gossip, which Genji has plenty of, and he seems so very interesting and charming and flattering.

Only Jack thinks he isn't, so much. He thinks that smile is more sly than charming, and that this young man is probably a bit of a rake. He smirks like he knows a private joke.

The villagers buy him drinks, buy him meals at the pub. They come around with little housewarming gifts of baked goods or flowers. The young man accepts them all, and leans forward and whispers things in their ears, and they go away tittering about whatever he told them. 

It's not exactly a con, because they do it freely, but Jack knows the look of somebody taking advantage of hospitality. But the young man doesn't seem actively malicious, so Jack simply gently avoids him, and hopes all the to-do will settle down before long. 

He's right, of course. The novelty wears off soon enough. Once they’ve heard his stories and gossip, once they’ve had their fill of a newcomer’s flattery, people stop trying to impress him. They stop mobbing his table when he comes to the pub to eat. They stop bringing him gifts and food. They stop paying much of any attention to him at all, really; at least not any more than they pay to everybody else in the village. Only Jack notices when the young man begins to look a bit more wan and thin than he used to.

The next village tizzy is about everybody's chickens. The fox raids are getting worse.

Jack leaves out a bit of extra food for the foxes. He figures, if they're hungry and he offers food freely, maybe they'll take that and the chickens will be left alone right He knows, knowing foxes and chickens, it's a bit of wishful thinking, but who does it hurt to try?

Meanwhile, the young man, being both an outsider and no longer the primary source of entertainment for the town, is all but a pariah at this point. So one day, Jack sits at the table in the pub across from him and buys two meals--one for each of them. 

Genji, who had been nursing his drink, looks up, startled. "Aren't you the baker?"

Jack nods. "I'm Jack."

"You've been avoiding me."

Jack shrugs. "I'm not much for the limelight."

Genji smiles slyly. "That's not what I've heard. I've heard stories."

Jack shrugs again. "I imagine you have. But they're stories about the past. I was someone else then. Now I'm just a baker."

"Why are you giving me things now," Genji asks, "when you wouldn't come near me when everybody liked me?"

Their food arrives. Jack shoves Genji's share in front of him. "You didn't need it then."

Genji cocks his head with a little frown on his face, considering Jack with strangely intent eyes. Jack finally taps Genji's plate with his knife. "Eat. Stop staring."

Genji smiles and eats.

A couple of days later, at the end of a baker’s long workday, Jack stands in front of Genji's door and knocks.

Genji opens it, and looks surprised. "What do you want?" He hasn't had many visitors since the village lost interest in him, although sometimes the kids come to visit him because Genji does tell great stories.

Jack lifts a sack full of baked goods. "Figured you could use some help filling your pantry."

Genji takes them gratefully, peering into the sack excitedly to find several loaves of bread, a couple of meat pasties, and even a few sweets! He grins wide and closes the bag, and looks at Jack. "Do you want to come in?"

Jack shakes his head. "I need to get back to the shop and clean up for the night." He waves goodbye and heads away, leaving Genji frowning in confusion and perhaps a bit of disappointment behind him.

Jack continues on this same way for some time, adding Genji to the rotation of people he shares his extra food with, and feeding the animals. 

It doesn't really help with the foxes. The issue with the chickens becomes a real problem. There are a fair number of baking recipes that require eggs, and also the village's flocks provide a fair amount of the meat in the townspeoples' diets. Losing their chickens means everybody has to spend more money in order to get by. Jack's own business is impacted as he loses easy access to his neighbors' eggs.

It's a tight time for all of them. Some of the villagers, Jack among them, start doing more small game hunting. Which, Jack figures, probably doesn't help the situation with the foxes, but what can you do?

Soon enough, Jack finds himself calling Genji a friend. They meet up fairly often to chat and hang out. Jack realizes ruefully that Genji has put a lot of effort into that because Jack isn't exactly a high-level socializer. He learns the kids were right: Genji has great stories. He seems to know stories from everywhere. Some of them are ones that have happened to people he knows. Others are old stories. They're all fascinating. He even manages to winnow a few war stories out of Jack.

One day, the turns and wanderings of their conversation bring them to the chicken situation. Jack shakes his head fretfully over the townspeople. "I imagine we'll make it through the winter," he says, "but some of them struggle to put food on their tables as it is. I wish I could do more to help.”

"Why don't you hunt the foxes?" Genji asks.

Jack shrugs uncomfortably. "I don't want to, if I can help it. They're just trying to live too. I was hoping that if I fed them, it would be enough for them. But I'm afraid I just made things worse."

Genji laughs and pats him on the shoulder.

Not too much after that, the season begins to turn colder and much to everyone’s relief, the chicken predation begins to fall off, although their flocks are so devastated they'll probably have to head to the next town over to buy more chickens for next year. 

Instead, people start missing their valuables.

At first the villagers are reluctant to embrace the concept of town-wide thefts. Oh, some people bitch and moan and even point fingers, but everyone else naysays them. "You probably misplaced it." "I never did trust that husband of yours." "You sure your little one didn't mistake it for a toy?"

But soon enough people turn up with things missing that the town realizes it's got a new epidemic on its hands. Someone is a thief.

Nothing gets stolen from Jack. And if anything gets stolen from Genji, he doesn't say anything about it. It soon gets to the point where not having something stolen is enough to bring suspicion. When it comes up one evening at the pub that Jack hasn’t been victimized, he shrugs. "What would they take? The only valuable thing I own is my sword."

They accept that, but there's muttering along the bar. Genji, sitting at the table with Jack, frowns in concern. "Are you going to be alright?"

Jack snorts. "They know me. They can grumble all they like, but if I'd cared about being wealthy, I wouldn't have come back here."

It's true. But it remains that Jack is the only person anybody's asked who hasn't reported something stolen. "Aside from some of the kids raiding my tomatoes."

Oddly, nobody's gotten around to actually asking Genji. He comes to the pub like everybody else, and gets involved in the conversations. But eventually Jack notices that anytime the conversation is heading that way, it gets deflected or shifted. Which is interesting, Jack thinks, since Genji's been doing a bit better for himself lately. He traps and sells furs, he’s explained to Jack. Since he's settled in and learned the patterns of the animals in the woods here, things have been going better for him. And surely he doesn't look so much like he needs something to eat. He's brighter and more jaunty again. Since things have been so tight for Jack and he's been trying to keep helping the families who need to feed their kids, Genji's even turned the tables and given him some gifts: dressed rabbits or partridges, a basket of berries he collected.

It gets bad though. Tensions in the village are sharp. The gossip mongers work themselves up to fever pitch. People who were previously thick as thieves stop speaking to each other, out of suspicion, and reputations hang by a thread.

Genji comes to Jack's house around dinnertime one evening, with a picnic basket of quail, roasted root vegetables and a bottle of whiskey. Jack opens the door to the knocking, and is surprised to find Genji standing on his doorstep. "What do you want?"

Genji lifts the basket. "I thought you could do with a good meal."

Jack lets him in, because it would be rude not to, and shares the meal, because it would be rude not to. He takes a loaf of his own bread and cuts it into thick slices, with berry jam that he made himself, and they have quite a nice dinner.

They chat about all sorts of things. The world, places they've been, people they've known, what's going on in the town. And afterwards, they sit on the floor in front of Jack's fire and drink the whiskey, and talk about the things they wouldn't talk about if they weren't a bit tipsy. How they felt about the people they've known, their hopes and dreams and regrets.

With alcohol loosening his tongue, Jack mourns the nastiness that's taken over his hometown. "Most of them didn't used to be like this."

"I don't know," says Genji. "When I first got here, some of them were real pieces of work."

"Some of them are assholes," Jack agrees. "Some of them could stand to learn something from it. But I hate seeing this happen to the others."

Genji hums, and turns back to stare thoughtfully into the fire for a while, his eyes reflecting the flames.

Jack looks into it too, and in the silence thinks of all the fires he's seen, and the people he's seen them with.

"Jack," Genji finally breaks the silence. "Have you ever loved?"

Jack stares at him for a moment, while he tries to decide whether he's drunk enough to answer.  
"Once, when I was young."

"Who was it? What were they like?"

"He was beautiful and brilliant and full of fire," Jack answers. "And so was I. And we burned each other down."

"Is that why you came back here?" Genji asks.

"Part of it. Maybe." Jack looks into his drink, and pours a little more into his glass. When he's drunk it back out again, he admits, "I didn't want the world anymore if he wouldn't come with it. I wanted to go somewhere I knew I'd never have to worry about finding someone like that again. Someone who burned so bright and made me want them."

Genji gives him the strangest look. It seems to sink right into him and see everything inside. "Maybe like calls to like," he murmurs. And then, in a different but equally strange tone, as if the words carry some kind of burden, "Do you ever think you might love again?"

Jack can't look away from Genji's eyes, and he can't answer.

When Genji sees that, he relents with a blink. Instead, he leans forward, steadying himself with a hand on Jack's broad chest, and kisses him. It's slow and lingering, and tastes of whiskey.

"Think about it," Genji says softly, and smiles a smile so dazzling Jack forgets to breathe.

Nothing else happens between them that night. 

It’s not long after that when the thefts begin to die down. All except for a select few households. They're the homes of the people the rest of the village might say have it coming to them. Jack can't find it in himself to pity them. Some of them are the villagers with plenty for themselves, who don't share it with those who need. Some are also the villagers who find everything to be somebody else's fault. The problem is that they're also the villagers who complain the loudest and have the most influence.

Jack might have other thoughts on the matter, but he is a bit distracted. 

Two days after their dinner, Genji sits down on the bench in Jack's garden next to him, and says without preamble, "Do you remember?" When Jack doesn't reply immediately, Genji adds with gentle caution, "You had quite a bit to drink."

"I remember," Jack says. He adds disapprovingly, "I'm almost old enough to be your father."

Genji laughs. "I'm older than I look. And you're not that old, anyway."

"I feel it," Jack grumbles. "I don't have an answer for you." He'd thought of trying to pretend he just didn't know what Genji was talking about. But that would've been unfair, and cowardly. He tries not to be the former anymore, and he's never been the latter.

He would've liked to answer no. He never wanted to fall in love again. It's why he came back here: so he would never risk meeting another person who tempted him. And now here's Genji, sly and funny and bright and beautiful. With his stories that almost make Jack want to believe in the world's beauty again. 

Love is a big word. An awfully big word. And he isn't sure it's what Genji really means. But with that kiss, Genji reminded him how to want. And now he can't forget.

Genji leans in slowly, till he's close enough for Jack to smell him and feel his breath on his lips. "I understand," he says, voice low and thrumming. "I'm in no rush."

And then Jack is kissing him.

And then Genji is pushing him back on the bench till Jack's shoulders hit wood and pushing his long-nailed hands up under Jack's shirt to run them over scarred skin, in Jack's garden where there's no one to see but the birds and the squirrels.

The stink over the thefts continues, and now the chicken incident is brought into it. The unhappy villagers still suffering thefts now throw around accusations that the chicken depredations were also imbalanced and unfair. Other villagers point out that their flocks were larger so there were more chickens to rob. And do they think perhaps the foxes were persecuting them personally? In response, the persecutees claim that perhaps it wasn't foxes at all. Maybe some other jealous villagers were involved.

Jack is only peripherally aware of the drama, because he is now very distracted. He continues feeding the children and the foxes and the birds, and scrounging to keep up his bakery in the face of the village losses and what he’s started calling ‘the nonsense.’ Now, in addition, he has a very determined and lovely man who seems to turn up every time Jack is looking the other way for a minute. Genji steals kisses like a fox steals chickens. Sometimes he also steals a grope or three. After all, he says with a laugh, Jack has a very nice chest. And his ass may be small but it's eminently grabbable.

Sometimes Genji comes to Jack's house in the evening and doesn't leave till the morning. Sometimes they just fall asleep by the fire, tucked against each other. And sometimes they don't sleep. Genji is a very creative lover, and he's courting Jack now for all he's worth, even though he seems to have all the patience in the world for Jack to make up his mind.

So Jack is sufficiently distracted that when the complainers bring in a magistrate and the region's sheriff, he's caught off guard. 

It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a raging disaster. There are indeed signs that human hands might have been involved in the chicken debacle. There are no signs of how humans could've been involved in the thefts. The magistrate doesn't want his time wasted, the sheriff just wants to get this over with, and the complainers don't care.

It's a week of chaos. Open fist fights break out at the pub, people hurl sod and overripe tomatoes at each other in the streets, farm animals end up ‘randomly’ in other peoples' gardens where they cheerfully eat all the spring shoots. One evening, Jack angrily informs the sheriff that this is the most pathetic witch hunt he's ever seen. They don't have a town jail or he probably would've spent the night in it for that.

In the end, since they don't have anything better to go on, suspicion falls where it always does: on the outsider. They pretty much drag Genji out of his house and decide to put him on trial.

Jack is _furious._

He knows it'll get him into all kinds of hot water, but he's not going to let them drag Genji off and hang him after a farce of a trial or whatever they've worked themselves up to. So he takes down his sword from the wall peg where it sleeps, and heads over there to start a big old fight and set Genji free. 

He doesn't do any permanent harm to anyone, but the sheriff does have a couple of armed guards, and in the end Jack and Genji have to run for their lives if they want to avoid killing.

Genji has learned the woods well, as a trapper. He leads Jack through them till they're well past anywhere the sheriff’s men might hunt them. Jack helps him build a shelter for the night, and they snuggle together under a lean-to with a fire in front of it to keep them warm.

"You saved my life," Genji says, wondering. "Your whole life is in that village. You threw it all away for me. You'll never be able to go back."

Jack shrugs. "It wasn't much of one. I think I've been avoiding building a life for a long time." He turns to Genji. "It was you, wasn't it? You were the thief."

Genji says nothing for a moment, too surprised to speak. Finally he asks, "How did you know?"

"After a while I noticed how nobody ever got around to asking you if you'd had anything stolen. Every time they started, you'd find a way to dodge the question or change the conversation. I wasn't sure till lately. It could've been an accident. Except you kept doing it." Jack pokes at a fire with a long stick, stirring the coals for a little more heat. “But what I don't understand, Genji, is why?"

"Ah, well. They had it coming.” Genji smiles. His teeth look sharp in the firelight. “I came to the village for you, Jack. You were always so kind to me, and everyone around you."

Jack stares at him, baffled. "I never met you before you moved to the village."

"No, but I knew you. You fed me and my brothers every day. And the people in the village. You did your best to make sure no one went hungry. And I decided I very much wanted to meet you." Genji laughs. "But when I tried, you wanted nothing to do with me!"

Jack looks away, shame overcoming his confusion. "You seemed..." He doesn't know how to say it without being insulting.

"Yes," Genji agrees. “The villagers wanted their stories and their gossip and their little games of one-upmanship. That's why I stole from them. I took their chickens to feed my friends. And when you asked me to stop because it was hurting people, I took their jewels and wealth instead." Genji smiles. It's soft, but Jack sees the inhuman lines in his face in a way he never has before, now that he's looking. That striking beauty of his...

Fox-faced, some people would call it.

"You have nothing to fear from me, Jack," Genji reassures him when he sees Jack's wide-eyed expression. "I paid those people back what they'd earned. But all you've ever done for me is give." He catches Jack's hand lightly in his own and raises it to his lips like a courtly gentleman. "I would still very much like to stay with you, if you're willing."

It's a lot to take in. Jack's friend is a kitsune. A kitsune who brought mayhem to his town and uprooted his entire life. Such as it was.

He thinks back to his first love, and what life had been like then. War and soldiering can't be anyone's life forever, but in those days Jack had wanted things. He'd seen wonders and marveled at them. He'd wanted to love and be in the world.

His life since he returned to his village has been nothing but hiding from those things. Maybe he's been a coward after all.

"I...I can't promise forever," Jack says at last.

Genji's smile is radiant. "For now is good, though."

They fall asleep leaning together by the fire. Fox eyes glint green in the firelight, watching over them.


End file.
